@blossom “I think the dynamic is typically that one or both parents are trying to fund a lifestyle (new significant other? new spouse with kids? or just a fun, traveling, buying toys stage) that is unaffordable if they also need to provide the kind of life for their kids that the kids had while the family is intact.”
Of course it is unreasonable to expect you can continue as if your family was intact, when it is not still intact. You are now trying to pay for two separate households on separate incomes, instead of a single household on combined incomes. You also have each gone through scores of thousands of dollars in legal expenses that an intact family is never exposed to.
Saying you need to provide the same life as if your family was still intact is sort of like saying you need to buy the same new car as if you weren’t laid off from your job. You cannot pretend the divorce or job loss didn’t happen and doesn’t affect things, because it certainly did and does. Your definition of “need” must adjust to reality, and the reality is divorce (a) sucks up all the money/savings you had, in litigation, and (b) reduces your financial “wiggle room” (income above expenses) to approximately zero thereafter.
“But a kid who lives an upscale lifestyle with great vacations and nice cars and frequent restaurant meals out just because nobody felt like throwing a pot of hot water on the stove for pasta… who is then told that there is zero money for college now that daddy is dating and mommy is going broke paying taxes on the house she wanted to keep to provide stability for the kids… well, that’s a tougher pill to swallow.”
The reality I’ve observed is that it is usually Mom, not Dad, who decided she wanted to break up the family, not for any particular cause but because she “wasn’t happy in the marriage.” “Providing stability for the kids” was just not a significant concern when she made that decision against everyone else’s wishes. If she then wants to go broke paying for a house, originally purchased with two incomes, on her income alone, that’s probably foolish but it’s purely her choice. Dad dating again after Mom kicks him out is not going to use up any significant amount of money, not compared to paying his legal defense costs and his own mortgage on his house.
The reality is that divorce is incredibly expensive to go through. Even when a couple have the sense to stay out of court, it is still incredibly expensive to start over as two households; you’re basically doubling the expenses that their combined incomes covered before. There is zero money for college because the college savings went to the lawyers and the income now goes to two different mortgages. That’s life in the USA today.
As an aside: suing for Child Support (which does not, in fact, go to the children, and for which there is no mechanism in place that a single penny of it ever actually be used for the children’s benefit) means you never, ever, ever get to ask for a single penny above and beyond what the courts awarded you. There is no goodwill remaining, no love lost, once you drag someone into court. You permanently frame yourselves as Opposing Parties in court, then you get a judgment, then you garnish it; you never get anything more. In particular, you get no sympathy.
“Girl, you need to collect Child Support from that deadbeat!”
“I already do. He’s paid up in full.”
“Oh. And you’re working too? And you still have money problems? WTF are you spending it on?”